The background description provided herein is for the purpose of generally presenting the context of the disclosure. Unless otherwise indicated herein, the materials described in this section are not prior art to the claims in this application and are not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in this section.
Cities are increasingly becoming ‘online’, but smart city technologies are typically deployed ad hoc and must support the multiple generations of technology used by the populace. Sensors, and compute that enable a smart city are not easily integrated into the existing ICT (information and communication technology) infrastructure of a city or municipality without extensive and expensive retrofitting.
Today's parking systems that have been retrofitted to be smart, offer limited intelligence to identify if there are available parking spaces and may automate the payment process over wireless. The parking spaces on the street or parking structures still remain fixed size which results in an inefficient use of ‘limited’ parking space available in big cities since automobiles come in variety of sizes. Parallel parking spaces are typically pre-fixed at ˜2.76 meters (9.1 ft) wide by ˜6.1 meters (20 ft) long. Further, parking spaces are often fix typed for handicapped, car pool, passenger loading/unloading, truck zone, or general use.